This passage is an extract from Joseph O’ Connor’s Star of the sea which was penned in the year 2002. The passage makes use of a third person narrative view point as a result of which the readers are provided with a vivid image of passengers aboard a stormy sea ship. The passage talks about a ship afloat a stormy sea and how the passengers on the deck are caught unaware due to this storm. The author uses a descriptive style of writing with short crisp sentences that heighten the pace of the story. In the last two paragraphs however, the author uses longer sentences that signal a slower pace and show the readers that the storm has died down for the time being. The author has interspersed the action with 2 dialogues. It is interesting to note that both dialogues are some form of instruction and hence the dialogue could be used to tell the reader what else is happening on the ship. The protagonist is unknown for the first stanza and the author uses diacksis to refer to the protagonist. This could be to build up the suspense and draw attention to the action rather than to the protagonist. The passage begins in medea res that is in the middle of the action. There is a rise in action in the first 2 passages which then abruptly halts in the last two paragraphs. The rise in action is complemented by the short sentences used by the author which increase the pace of the story. The exposition of the passage comes towards the end when we are introduced to Dixon, Meredith, Laura and her two children. The climax could be the part where the klaxon is sounded to clear all the decks. This klaxon is a bell and has allusions to the jingling of bells in the bible. Thus it can be said that the action is in accordance with the Freytag’s triangle. The author makes heavy use of imagery. He uses a lot of visual imagery to paint a vivid picture of a stormy ship. Sentences like “It seemed to spew from the clouds not merely fall” , show us that the author pays attention to detail. These...

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...Carrillo 1
The Life Cycle of a SeaStar
Between birth and death, a seastars life follows a cycle of development, adulthood, and eventually parenthood. It is the cycle that produces new seastars and keeps populations balance. Seastars begin their lives as tiny larvae that look nothing like the adult seastars. The larvae have different shaped bodies with many projecting arms. “It looks more like a blob of jelly” (Perry 46).
Seastar larvae develop in open water and immediately become part of the plankton, a population of very small plants and animals that floats near the ocean surface. As soon as it enters this population, a seastar larva begins to search. It eats as many of its tiny neighbors as it can catch. As it eats, it becomes bigger and stronger.
Although the plankton stage is a time of great growth and opportunity for a seastar larva, it is also a time of great danger. Seastars are not the only hunters roaming the plankton. There are many other small but hungry animals searching for food in the same area. Most of these animals do not hesitate to eat a seastar larva. Plankton is also the main food source of some large animals, including some whales and sharks. These...

...Star of the Sea
By: Joseph O’Connor
I.B. English A1
The passage from Star of the Sea was written by Joseph O’Connor. It is a piece of narrative prose which takes place on a passenger ship. The passage is written in a third-person subjective narrative mode. The passage is takes place at a point in the storyline as the ship is passing through a violent storm at sea, which portrays the forces of nature
The passage starts with a sense of an atmosphere, “The music of the ship
was howling around him.” This sentences is very filled with visual and auditory imagery. The opening sentence creates a feeling of a fast-paced rhythm in its brief expression. The pace reflects the craziness of flooding rain and surging sea.
The metaphor of the ship’s “music… howling” brings an auditory imagery which symbolizes the storm, which overwhelms the singular pronoun “him” just as the storm overwhelms the Star of the Sea. As well Nature overwhelms the Man. “The low whistling; the tortured rumbles; the wheezy sputters of breeze flowing through it” gives a sharp feeling with its short phrases, which gives the sentence certain rhythm. The repetition of similar vowels (“whistling”, “wheezy”, “breeze”) creates a hollow sound that are similar to that of a gust of wind at sea.
All of a sudden there is a quickness and urgency that is showed in the use of the...

...﻿THE SEA by James Reeves
The main idea of The Sea by James Reeves is that the sea is similar to a dog in so
many ways. They both share similar characteristics and behaviour.
In fact, one can look at this poem as one long metaphor, mainly focusing on the
similarity between the sea and the dog.
The very first line of the first stanza spells out the metaphor quite clearly: “The sea is
a hungry dog”.
Moreover, the rest of the poem reinforces this idea by frequently referring to a dog’s
physionomy: teeth, jaws, gnaws, bones, paws, sounds (howls, snores, licking,
moans), and movement (rolls, bounds to his feet, shaking his wet sides).
In the first stanza, the angry sea is described as a hungry dog who is gnawing at a
bone. In fact, in this poem the sea is continuously described in terms of dog
imagery: “clashing teeth and shaggy jaws”, “he gnaws”, “bones”, “licking his greasy
paws”.
In the second stanza, Reeves compares the rough and stormy sea at night to an
uncontrollable wet dog who “shakes his wet sides”. The waves crashing into the
cliffs also bring to mind an image of a dog in a tub of water: When the dog moves,
there are waves, and they crash upon the walls and tub, causing little droplets to fall
back down into the tub. In the sea the waves, similarly, crash on the cliffs.
The main twist in this poem...

...Write a commentary on one of the following:
The music of the ship was howling around him. The low whistlings; the tortured rumbles; the wheezy sputters of breeze flowing through it. The clatter of loose wainscoting. The clank of chains. The groaning of boards. The blare of wind. Never before had he felt rain quite like it. It seemed to spew from the clouds, not merely to fall. He watched the wave rise up from a quarter of a mile away. Rolling. Foaming. Rushing. Surging. Beginning to thicken and swell in strength. Now it was a battlement of ink-black water, almost crumpling under its own weight; but still rising, and now roaring. It smashed into the side of the bucking Star, like a punch thrown by an invisible god. He was aware of being flung backwards into the edge of a bench, the dull crack of metal against the base of his spine. The ship creaked violently and pitched into a tilt, downing slowly, almost on to beam ends. A clamour of terrified screams rose up from steerage. A hail of cups and splintering plates. A man’s bellow: ‘Knockdown! Knockdown!’ One of the starboard lifeboats snapped from its bow-chain and swung loose like a mace, shattering through the wall of the wheelhouse.
The boom of the billows striking the prow a second time. A blind of salt lashed him; drenched him through. Waves churning over his body. The slip of his body down the boards towards the water. A shredding skreekof metal on metal. The grind of the engine ripped from the ocean....

...Heldt 1
Benjamin R. Heldt
Mr. Bender
English 10000
8 May 2012
The Sea
After reading The Old Man and the Sea, written by Ernest Hemingway, I found the most interesting part of the book to be the sea itself. One can almost consider the sea another character, due to the vital role it plays in the short novella. The sea provides a glimpse at Santiago’s knowledge and experience that he has acquired throughout the course of his life. As well as the sea is used as a metaphor to the literary community, if one looks at it this way. I also find its role polarized since it is both a provider and a threat at the same time. This eventually teaches a good life-lesson to the readers.
Throughout the story, Santiago and Manolin are on the sea often. This setting allows for Santiago to present his wisdom and experience to Manolin, and the readers. He has knowledge of the current “He was rowing steadily and it was no effort for him since he kept well within his speed and the surface of the ocean was flat except for the occasional swirls of the current. He was letting the current do a third of the work as it started to be light he saw he was already
Heldt 2
further out than had hoped to be at this hour.” (Hemingway, 10), the depth of fish inhabitants “This time it was a tentative pull, not solid nor heavy, and he knew exactly what it was. One hundred fathoms down a...

...﻿The star online
Published: Monday September 23, 2013 MYT 12:00:00 AM
Updated: Monday September 23, 2013 MYT 10:29:23 AM
A new normal for local SMEs
BY JOY LEE
PHOTOS BY FAIHAN GHANI
A worker carries a car bumper in a factory that supplies exterior plastic parts for Volkswagen. European SMEs have more experience in implementing energy-efficiency solutions. Increasingly, their Malaysian counterparts will have to focus on becoming more energy efficient to compete in global markets.
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The GREEN talk has been going on for a while now.
But with the government moving to reduce the country’s reliance on subsidies for fuel, energy efficiency and sustainability are becoming important elements for businesses to look into as a means of controlling costs.
The pump price of fuel was recently raised by 20 sen. As a result of this a hike in the cost of almost everything else is expected to follow.
The need for energy efficiency is particularly telling for the small and medium enterprises (SME) given that they don’t always have the economies of scale that larger corporations do.
The rising cost of energy will be a new challenge for SMEs in their quest to stay ahead of the curve in increasingly competitive markets.
Kenmart: Being energy efficient is not just about cutting your cost of energy. It is also about being more productive in using your energy.
“Looking at the current situation, SMEs will need to look at...

...the dog metaphor to elicit the behaviors of the sea at many occasions. The poet compares the different behaviors of the dog at different moods with the sea. The first stanza shows the begining of the violence due to the hungry nature of the dog which metaphoricaly depicts the sea waves turning out to be heavy and rough. The second stanza shows the waves quickening and becoming more rough due to the enviromental change, thereby the dog is so hungry and angry that it is ready to eat anything it finds. While the third stanza depicting the total calmness and quietness of the sea which means that the dog, after undergoing all these it becomes tired and falls asleep where it has neither the strength to snore. Therefore it shows how successful is the dog metaphor to the different moods of the sea.
The Sea by James Reeves
The Sea
by James Reeves
The criterion of the actions of the sea and its behaviour pattern is eloquently depicted in the poem. The Sea, James Reeve’s diction style, rhythm and thyme, the metaphors and the tone itself create the actual image of changing moods of the sea.
Firstly James Reeves introduces the sea in the form of “a hungry dog” with all its activities, actions and reactions. The reader is able to visualise the image of the “hungry dog” “clashing teeth and shaggy jaws” Hour upon hour he gnaws”....

...﻿Assignment 1
‘Star of the Sea’ by Joseph o Connor is a text set during the Irish Potato Famine, in 1847. The Irish Potato famine of the 1840s was the greatest social catastrophe of 19th century Europe, yet inspired surprisingly little imaginative writing. (Eagleton, 2002) However this book has been described by the Sunday Times as having ‘compelling characters and a dizzying narrative’ (Heaney, 2007) This compelling story is set around a wealthy, turned bankrupt, land owner and his family who flee to America, the promised land, in search of a new life. They are joined on this journey by a range of other passengers whose previous lives are in entwined together in a past that won’t let them go. The book has been written as ‘multi-layered, with the story told by several voices’ (Spain, 2007) One has chosen to take an in depth look at Lord Kingscourt and the type of man he is, from three different perspectives. These perspectives are looked at through the eyes of himself, GG Dixon and Mary Duane. One will be looking at his opinion of himself, as read in Chapter 2, ‘The Victim’. This chapter shows Lord Kingscourt in a positive light from the onset. We will get a brief insight into his childhood, his relationship with his father and how this affects his relationship with his own children now. We see that Lord Kingscourt has a close relationship with his children that most men of that period do not have, he takes part in their upbringing,...